


Imperator

by Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claricechiarasorcha)



Series: Imperium [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: General Hux Is Not A Nice Person, Hand Jobs, Imperialistic Intention, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren Has Issues, M/M, Smoking Is A Filthy Habit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:17:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5839519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claricechiarasorcha/pseuds/Clarice%20Chiara%20Sorcha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Though the distance between them was but mere feet, it yawned in sudden dizzying space, inviting a very long and a very hard fall. “Is this a test, Lord Ren?” he asked, mild, controlled. “Or are you simply trying to take my hand and lead me gently into treasonous admission?”</i>
</p><p>This is as close to a truce as they might get.</p><p>(For now.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imperator

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reserve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/gifts).



> I'm very randomly dedicating this to reserve, even though we've barely spoken. It's just that I only fly by night in this fandom, and yet half an hour after following reserve on tumblr all I wanted was Emperor Hux, upon his throne: cigarette in one hand, and one boot upon Kylo Ren's balls.
> 
> ...
> 
> Let me know if that's a problem. I just thought to give credit where it was due. And this time I swear it's the last fic I'll write in this fandom I barely understand, ha ha. <3

Despite being a ship of almost ludicrous size, the _Finalizer_ held few spaces where one might think themselves alone. Even his own quarters could not provide true solitude; he was forever but a comms request away from catastrophic interruption. The extensive training of his subordinates did not negate one simple fact: he was their general, their commander, their absolute authority. Only Hux himself was fit to bear the full weight of such power.

This dark corner had become the only place he had found far from the constant vigilance of high position. A lesser-used catwalk high above the hangars, it dead-ended in a dim cul-de-sac, lit now by little more than the glow at the end of his cigarette. Even thus isolated Hux would permit himself only one, unless it had been a particularly trying day. Or if he’d had to sign more requisitions than the usual to cover the walking wrecking ball that was Kylo Ren.

It was an unfortunate thought to have while contemplating the excesses of a second smoke. As if summoned by some vagrancy of the Force, familiar muted footsteps drew close – too close, by half. Not bothering to hide a scowl, Hux flicked ash over the side, watched it float aimlessly towards the distant floor below.

“I am at present unavailable, Lord Ren.” The cigarette shifted in his ungloved fingers, steadied. “Talk to me later.”

“Now is fine.”

A slow breath, drawn in; he scowled deeper at the sensation of it. The air here was always too cold, tasting faintly of ozone. Raising it to his lips, now careless of whatever Kylo Ren might think of his one vice, Hux drew deep on the cigarette. With eyes closed he permitted himself to enjoy its sharp scent, warmth stretching welcome though the expansion of lungs. Blowing it out with one long measured breath, Hux did not now consider the mess. It would be washed away the moment he returned to his quarters. It would not do to stink of smoke, to have ash upon his cuffs, when he returned to the duties that always awaited his attention.

Though Hux could feel Kylo Ren’s eyes upon him – could feel his _thoughts_ upon him – he very studiously did not look his way. While there might little enough to see below, he much preferred that view. At such a small hour of the night, and the shifts at their sleepy middle, it was unusual enough to catch sight of even the one lone technician below. This one worked languid about his repair. The disciplinarian in him vaguely considered issuing a stern reprimand later, then rejected the thought entire. He had to appreciate the tech’s obliging disinterest in his surroundings – which was far more than could be said for the person standing not three feet from him.

The hissed release of the helmet’s breathing apparatus broke through the silence with sudden explosive glee; it grated against his teeth like a poorly-tuned comms broadcast. Hux did not look around. Kylo Ren unmasked usually proved a curious sight at the best of times. And Hux had always been a curious sort. But he still didn’t turn, even as Ren set the helmet aside.

“That’s better.”

“It really isn’t.”

Ren’s first answer was little more than a soft chuckle. It only had Hux gritting his teeth harder. The other man’s voice always seemed very peculiar without the affectation of the vocoder; Kylo Ren, with his odd pauses and the enunciation that was so careful as to become clumsy, would never be an orator. Hux, having been one of the few to discover as much, supposed to some extent he could understand Ren’s subsequent desire for the helmet.

He still reserved the right to call it ridiculous.

“I wished to speak with you in private,” Ren added, sudden; Hux snorted his next puff out through flaring nostrils.

“How nice for you.”

“I know what you want.”

Hux almost choked on the next inhalation – _damn_ Kylo Ren; he just could not wait long enough for Hux to get some real pleasure out of the cigarette before springing his latest idiocy upon him. The fierce urge to stub it out on one of those ridiculous liquid eyes was one he had to fight back, and hard. Taking another long drag, Hux also only just resisted the urge to kick him, and said nothing at all.

Ren, to his credit, also kept his idiot mouth shut. But he did not move. Almost uncannily still now, he remained in his chosen place; Hux had to wonder where that fierce discipline went when Ren felt the urge to thrust his lightsaber through an entire panel’s worth of equipment that did not belong to him.

The cigarette’s distraction could only last so long. Hux still smoked it right down to the filter. Only then did he remove a small silver case from his pocket, stubbing out the remainder before tidying both away in a greatcoat pocket.

Replacing his gloves, Hux turned at last, eyes very cold. “Well, now that you have ruined my evening – how might I help _you_ , Lord Ren?”

His lean shoulders, made wide really only by the bulk of his cowl, moved in loose shrug. “I am here to help you.”

“And you are doing such a wonderful job,” he snapped out, and then permitted himself a sigh – though only internally. Every morning he promised himself he would not allow himself another childish spat with Kylo Ren. And there were far too many evenings where he would rue his failure.

Those huge dark eyes blinked, just once. “I do know,” he said, very slow. “What it is that you want, I mean.”

Already a headache had begun to beat behind his eyes with the force of a rising hurricane. “So you say,” he said, and might have turned away if not for the single word that fell from Kylo Ren’s too-generous lips.

“ _Imperator_.”

Hux went very still. “What?”

“I can help you.”

Though the distance between them was but mere feet, it yawned in sudden dizzying space, inviting a very long and a very hard fall. “Is this a test, Lord Ren?” he asked, mild, controlled. “Or are you simply trying to take my hand and lead me gently into treasonous admission?”

“You think this a trap?” he suggested, too guileless to be genuine. Hux smiled, very thinly, and utterly without humour.

“If you wish to call it that.”

And he laughed – the great lanky fool actually _laughed_. “Do give me _some_ credit, General.”

Taking a slow breath, feeling the ground beneath his feet begin to steady once more, Hux permitted himself a roll of his eyes. “You are hardly the most subtle of creatures.”

“Perhaps not,” he granted, odd and magnanimous, with his head tilted to one side in a manner very nearly childish. When he said no more, Hux pursed his lips, turned over in his mind what few options he had. If Kylo Ren – and by association, Snoke – were both aware of his imperialistic aspirations, and wished to test his loyalty, it would be best to say little.

_But then, would any who use the Force really need you to say anything at all?_

“Why would you even care what I want?” he asked, and surprised even himself with the fact it came out more curious than calculating. The faintest hint of a smile about Kylo Ren’s lips said perhaps he found it just as unexpected.

“Because I have been watching you.”

“Charming.”

The too-expressive face became an impassive mask. “I care because you could be the Emperor I would wish most to serve.”

Such an explosive admission, to be delivered in the soft voice of a man who looked barely beyond adolescence. But Hux had long ago seen Ren’s – largely incomplete – personnel file. His age was but a year or two beneath his own. And he had been in Jedi training from babyhood, had turned at Snoke’s command before he’d even reached his majority. Hux, a military brat from before memory, knew that while chronological age might not be malleable, experience certainly was.

But had someone asked him earlier, he would have suggested Kylo Ren wanted power merely for himself: a greedy child grasping at every little morsel that came his way. Narrowing his gaze, Hux now took a different tack, and tested the winds there.

“Is this part of your emulation of Darth Vader? You wish to stand at the side of the Emperor as he did?” His smile hung very false upon frozen features; he had seen more than once the result of a person speaking to Kylo Ren of his so-called hero. Very carefully, he added, “I would have thought you had that in Snoke.”

He shrugged again, shoulders a vague movement beneath the bulk of his cloak. “My master’s designs are…somewhat different.”

Even if Ren indeed only coaxed him into a trap, Hux could not resist voicing his thought. “You’re suggesting Snoke has no wish to be Emperor.”

“He calls himself _Supreme Leader_ for a reason.”

“But I am no Palpatine.” He cannot keep the bitterness from his voice, the frustration that he should even care about something so trivial. “I am not a Sith Lord. Why, then, should I believe you would wish to serve me in the way Vader served Palpatine? I barely know of the Force in even an academic sense.”

“But I do.” One step forward, and he loomed large enough to block out what little light remained. “You need me.”

Hux tilted his chin up, words teetering upon the edge of tedium. “I hardly think so.”

This time, when he smiled, it was purely ugly, unkind and unforgiving. “I am born of royal blood.” The burn of Ren’s satisfaction cut into Hux with the cauterising agony of a lightsaber strike. “You, only of Brendol Hux.” Again he paused, allowed the blow to resonate. “I have many things you do not.”

“Get out.”

Even as Hux trembled before him, a dynamo wound nearly to explosion with venomous, furious energy, Kylo Ren did not stir. “This is as much my ship as yours.”

“I _said_ , get out.”

This time he began to frown, the overlarge brow crinkling with what treaded too close to disappointment. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

“Oh, but I am.” He stepped forward, military-sharp, poised for sudden battle but a mere inch from Kylo Ren’s ridiculous unmasked face. “I will be _no-one_ ’s puppet ruler.”

He did not so much as blink. “You would not have to be.” When he smiled, sudden and strange, the _light_ of it made him lurch back. “You could even call me Kylo.”

“ _What_?”

“Or whatever else you wanted.” Now the smile curved in all the wrong ways, like a knife turned upon its master. “I’d allow it,” he added, thoughtful, and now his expression turned calculating. “You wish for power, and I will soon enough be beyond what Snoke has left to teach me. What we want: we can neither of us do this alone.”

Fury and frustration warred within his mind like duelling bitter children. At least as his hands wrapped too tight about the railing, the gloves hid their whitened knuckles. Drawing a deep breath, lungs aching for another warm breath of smoky air, Hux kept his words to himself, and could only hope Ren would stay out of his mind.

“Give it some thought, General.”

He did not need to watch him melt back into the shadows from whence he had come.

But he did need another damn cigarette.

 

*****

 

The days that followed were left unmarked by suns or moons rise; only the artificial cycles of night and day provided by the circadian systems of the _Finalizer_ gave any temporal definition to their passing. From general to lowliest cadet, there was always work to be done. And throughout it all, Hux saw no sign of Kylo Ren – not even via the many requests for repair or replacement he otherwise so often received from various technicians about the destroyer.

He might have suspected Ren had left the ship on one of the many errands Snoke demanded of his apprentice, if not for the dreams. Even though they grew so faint as to be almost beyond memory by morning, he did not forget them.

It might have been tempting to pass them off as wild imagination, had their theme not stayed always the same: Hux, arrayed in full imperial regalia before rows upon rows of his subjects. The sigil of his house raised before him, flickering on banners beyond his line of sight. The rising, rousing beat of his military tattoo singing through his blood, hot and demanding.

And at his side: dark, tall, silent. The master of the Knights of Ren. His enforcer.

 _Your slave_ , he would whisper. And then it would shift, to tangled limbs and hot mouths, bodies forced to knees, a switch in hand, a cane brought down. Or Ren might come before both him, and the Empire he commanded. Blood would gleam bright even upon the dark robes, the heads of rebels in his raised hands with mouths opened in silent scream. A river of filth trailed out behind him, glory and gore twinned and brilliant both. Hux himself would stand high upon the red-draped dais, gloved hands behind his back, uniform crisp and clean, eyes cold and dark as he looked down upon all that was his.

_The Emperor upon his throne; the Executioner upon his scaffold. Let them see it both: the beauty of order, the chaos of resistance._

When he at last he surrendered to the siren call of his filthy habit, returning to his place upon the disused catwalk, he already knew what he would find there. Hux therefore did not miss a step upon seeing that a familiar dark shape leaned against the railing. He also did not turn away. But neither did he acknowledge his damnable presence.

And yet, when he stood but two or three feet from him, one long arm extended in his direction. Clasped between long fingers: a lit cigarette.

Hux’s brow furrowed, hands loose at the small of his back. “I didn’t realise you smoked.”

“I don’t.”

It would easy enough to ignore the gesture. But it would also be childish.

“Thank you.”

Withdrawing his hand, Ren gave no answer. Letting him stew in his own dramatics – and allowing himself to be glad that this was actually rather _subdued_ for Ren – Hux indulged himself in the cigarette. Even with the strange creature so close by his side, he felt the tension of shoulders and spine begin to dissolve, eyes fixed upon the silence of space beyond the hangar’s blast doors.

“Are you using the Force to give me deliberately lascivious dreams, or should I perhaps look at obtaining tranquilisers from a med droid?”

Ren barely stirred at the sudden words. There were many times indeed when Hux considered the Force to give unfair advantage indeed. “That’s…quite a confession, General.”

“Is it?”

Even in profile, his lips quirked in something close a smile. Hux found it more disturbing than even the most vicious of his tantrums. “You enjoy them,” he observed, without query. For his part, Hux knew there to be little point in lying to a Force user.

“There is an element to them that I…appreciate, certainly.”

When Ren turned now towards him, one gloved hand upon the railing, his expression had developed into something almost gentle. And this the man Hux had once watched choke the life from a trooper for simply being in the way of one of his overly dramatic stalks across the bridge.

“I am not trying to entrap you.”

“Really.”

His smile had vanished, and gravity lent him a strange and sudden age. It did not suit his peculiar features in the slightest. “There are so few men who could bring back the glory days of the Empire.” He paused, added with simplistic ease, “You. Only son of Brendol Hux. _You_ might do so.”

While he had thanked Ren for the cigarette, he would not thank him for having the common decency to let him smoke it in peace. When he was done, Hux flicked it over the edge, watched it trail away in a flash of dying ember. “I take it you have the permission of your master to be making such sweeping offers of allegiance?”

“Does it matter?”

It did, in that there was no _sense_ to it. To any of it. Behind Hux lay years of carefully cultivated allies and connections, of financial backing promised and political influence gained. Kylo Ren could only be a wildcard, something so entirely beyond his expectations as to be little but a dangerous gamble.

“And you offer yourself,” he said, lips pursed. “In every sense.”

The dark head inclined. “Yes.”

There would be no point in denying the attraction. When next he spoke, it was deliberate, very slow, eyes fixed upon the starfield beyond his ship. “I simply can’t imagine you have much…experience, in such matters. Shall we say.”

“I don’t.” The idiot had the gall to sound amused. “I thought you’d enjoy that.”

Something broke, right at the very back of his mind. Hux ignored it, voice very flat as he now turned his gaze upon Kylo Ren. “Really.”

One gloved hand rose, fell. “You don’t like other people touching your things.” And he tilted his head, expression too knowing by far. “You also like your things to be…very, very clean.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Isn’t it?” Now he seemed dangerously close to curious. “You are an only child. So was I.”

“ _Was_?” How he longed for another cigarette. “So what are you now?”

Oddly open as his expression had been, it shuttered itself away in one sharp second. “I am Kylo Ren.” His overlarge lips pressed tight together, as if he bit back on some unspoken truth that might otherwise fight its way free. And then he spoke again, low, almost husky. “But we’re the same, in that. I never liked to share my toys. And neither do you.”

And Kylo Ren was surely the sort of toy that would likely as not blow up in its owner’s hands. Hux let silence fall between them for a long moment, then let out an exasperated breath. “It’s a bold course of action, for a virgin,” he said, _and the worst thing is, it’s not even the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard of you doing_. “How can you be certain you have anything I want?”

“I do have a distinct advantage.” One hand rose, two fingers tapping lightly at his own temple; the smile was the ugly blade of a schoolyard bully. “I can see your mind, remember.”

“Any fool can bring up a holo of data.” Ren had only two inches on him. Hux made sure it did not count when he added with lazy viciousness, “It doesn’t mean he knows anything of what to _do_ with it.”

Ren only blinked. Then he stepped forward. Hux did not step back. But the wall loomed very close behind him all the same. Those searching eyes seemed to fill the world: very dark, attempting to catch what meagre light was left to them both. But in the shadows they found little else to reflect but the black. One less experienced might have called them empty. But Hux had held the command of deep space, and he knew: black holes manipulated the strongest gravitation of them all, dense and dark and demanding.

Hux did not recall stepping back. Still the wall felt cool even through the thick fabric of his jacket. Ren’s hands had worked up beneath its hem; through the finely-fitted leather of his gloves, they made easy work of the buttons of Hux’s trousers, easing his cock out. And Hux frowned, hands lightly curling to fists.

“You are creasing my uniform.”

“Let me worry about that.”

And still, he _stared_. Hux met his gaze on equal keel, unflinching even as the hand began to move. Virgin though he might be, Kylo Ren clearly took the time to service himself, setting both a satisfactory pace and pressure. The warm leather of his gloves, faintly slick, slid smooth as a whisper against Hux’s skin.

Even though he looked away not once, Hux had no idea what lurked behind those ridiculous eyes. Close proximity alone could not hope to explain such enigma. This was the son of Leia Organa; this he knew. He was born of kings, of queens: but he himself would not name himself even a prince.

_No. I am a Knight._

It was hardly the first time he’d felt Kylo Ren’s presence in his mind. Hux told himself the stiffening of his cock was simply a mechanical inevitability, but knew himself for a liar. Ren had made no effort to conceal himself. The strangeness of it, of _him_ , an anomaly amongst the ordered numbers of his own mind: he could not deny the fascination of such power, and so very close to the seat of his own.

_Yes. Let me in._

Hux could not say that he did so – and yet a slow sigh escaped Ren, trembling upon its apex, a low flush rose high upon his cheeks. It left Hux frowning deeper, even as he felt his own limbs flood with easy heat. While some would name Hux the stiffer of the two, he himself would have just called it good military bearing. Ren carried instead a kind of hectic tension, a swirling vortex of emotion held barely in check. Just another reason for the helmet, perhaps; a mask to be worn over the terribly expressive features laid bare before Hux now.

And they were relaxing now, white watercolour bleeding into shadow; his face had always been too pale, made worse now by pupils blown too wide and too dark. Hux could _feel_ him in his mind: a presence like a dart, narrow and shadowed and seeking out its target with frantic speed. But he was slowing, calming, _dissolving_. The ordered annals of Hux’s mind had apparently provided a maze in which he could exhaust himself to something very much like peace.

But the long fingers still moved, now with rippling pressure. When he thumbed the head with expert curl, Hux released an involuntary sigh of his own. A slow movement of hips followed: forward, back, forward again. Kylo Ren moved to accommodate, falling easy into his rhythm. The memory of the dreams came stronger, now. The two of them together: Hux upon a throne, Kylo Ren on one knee before him. And he would look up from beneath the girlishly-long eyelashes, lips curled in a faint smirk. The brand of the Emperor he wore as a silver collar about his throat.

Hux came sudden, and hard. No sound was permitted to escape, lips pressed tight together. He did not look once away. Kylo Ren drew back first, eyes drifting down with a dreamer’s slow grace. The gloved hand rose, turned in the dim light as he examined the white streaks across his fingers with an almost wondering curiosity.

Then, a long lick: once, twice, three times.

“That’s _disgusting_ ,” Hux said, even as he teetered dangerously close to impressed. Such frank depravity had always appealed more than was truly proper. But Kylo Ren’s wide features had flattened, remaining strangely impassive when he spoke again.

“That’s what I am for.”

A faint curl of unease, strange and unwelcome, stirred low in his abdomen. Yet Hux still found it easy enough to push it aside. Reaching instead for his flies, he found Ren had already beaten him to it. Careful, quick, almost reverent, Ren tidied him away. Yet as soon as his hands withdrew Hux smoothed the jacket over his crotch from where it had bunched up about the belt; even in the darkness, he scowled to see its disarray.

Ren’s dark eyes said much, even where he himself seemed wordless. A strange sensation shimmered upon the air, and sudden frustration hit Hux hard. Despite a thorough grounding in mechanics, chemistry, and basic physical principles from his schooling, he could not hope to comprehend how Ren manipulated all those and more by mere thought alone. But his belief proved no more necessary than his understanding; even as he watched the fabric smoothed, stiffened, returned to its earlier impeccable hang.

Hux glanced up, lip curled. “I do believe that is the basest use of your power I have yet seen.”

It ripped through his mind without warning: a silver-hot arrow, whiting out his vision and ripping a strangled scream from his throat. Hands reached out, blind, grasped the railing just before his knees gave way; had he not already come once so very recently, he would have spilled again, and into his trousers this time.

“Oh,” Ren said, very soft, but a chuckling inch from his ear, “oh, General, there are always _baser_ uses.”

It took far too long for him to regain equilibrium. When he straightened, met those dark eyes, his voice still came out hoarse, ragged. “I will consider your offer.”

And Ren only nodded, drawing back once more. “I will await your answer.”

It could be little else but a fool’s notion. It could be walking to an executioner’s noose, patiently prepared and baited by Snoke himself. But, two nights later, Hux moved swift through the corridors to quarters he had never once had occasion to bother with.

He made no request. The override opened all doors. And Hux knew Ren waited within even before he stepped inside. At the centre of the room he stood: tall, very calm, hands at his side, one eyebrow raised in quizzical challenge.

“General.”

“Please, _Kylo_ ,” Hux replied, and smiled with all of his teeth; behind him, the door slid closed with a whisper. “Just _your majesty_ will do.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Imperator](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6314038) by [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




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